Can't Stop the Music [RSC Film Club 26]

[LimeGreenLegend 4,277]

Oh boy, we're starting 2021 off with a doozy.  The winning, randomly drawn film for January is @Sinister's pick of Can't Stop the Music.  

Produced by Allan Carr, who had a small success with another musical a few years earlier, you may have heard of it - Grease, and directed by Nancy Walker, her only feature film directing credit, Can't Stop the Music is a fictional biopic of The Village People starring the group as themselves alongside a pre-Police Academy Steve Guttenberg and a pre-transition Caitlin Jenner.  This is a film I have seen way more than it deserves, I could write my review now without re-watching it, so believe me when I tell you that it is bad.  This is a very bad film.  Everything about it is bad.  The acting is awful, the sets look cheap, the direction is uninspired - especially for a musical, some of the songs are good but the majority of them are cheesy disco pap, the story is nonsensical and often boring, and I love it all.  This is a "so-bad-it's-good film in the same legendary league as The Room, Hercules in New York and Troll 2.  

So my advice is to grab a few beers, a bottle of wine or whiskey, or whatever it is you use to mess with your brain and get ready for some absolute garbage of the highest order.  This is a film you won't forget once you've seen it, even though you may want to.  I really can't wait for the reviews on this one!

young man, there's no need to feel down

[Con 5,719]

Yo Bruce Jenner is in this?! Lmao. The writing was on the wall bros. Hahaha 

how did the dude that make Grease then go on to make something that appears so bad?

Edited January 12, 2021 by Con

[LimeGreenLegend 4,277]

3 minutes ago, Con said:

how did the dude that make Grease then go on to make something that appears so bad?

I've actually done quite a bit of research on this film and the main factors seem to be 1. Grease was based on an already successful stage musical while this is an original story 2. Allan Carr was one of a number of producers on Grease and 3. the Village People's manager, Jacque Morali, who Guttenberg plays in the film in a fictionalised sort of way, had a huge amount of control over the film, basically dictating everything.

Seriously, this film is a mess.  

Incidentally, Allan Carr went on to produce the 1989 Academy Awards, considered the worst show in the history of the Oscars.  

[Con 5,719]

11 minutes ago, LimeGreenLegend said:

I've actually done quite a bit of research on this film and the main factors seem to be 1. Grease was based on an already successful stage musical while this is an original story 2. Allan Carr was one of a number of producers on Grease and 3. the Village People's manager, Jacque Morali, who Guttenberg plays in the film in a fictionalised sort of way, had a huge amount of control over the film, basically dictating everything.

Seriously, this film is a mess.  

Incidentally, Allan Carr went on to produce the 1989 Academy Awards, considered the worst show in the history of the Oscars.  

Scandalous!! hahaha on paper this could have been really good since the VP were everywhere and so famous. I will certainly appreciate the "What-not-to-do" filmmaking aspect of it. Sometimes Im more inetrested in what not to do than what to do. Know what im saying bubbie?

[LimeGreenLegend 4,277]

Just now, Con said:

Sometimes Im more inetrested in what not to do than what to do. Know what im saying bubbie?

There'll be a lot to interest you here then 😄 

[Sinister 2,583]

Sorry everyone, lol. I had two choices, this and something involving Pirates. Coin toss decided this would be it. 
 

While the movie bombed everywhere, it was most successful in Australia. 
 

Oddly enough I’m looking forward to this.  I have a thing for terrible movies. I’m one of 5 people that laughs while watching Freddy got Fingered. Will rent it from Amazon this weekend. 

[LimeGreenLegend 4,277]

1 minute ago, Sinister said:

While the movie bombed everywhere, it was most successful in Australia. 

It's a new year's tradition over there.  One channel has played it every year for the past god knows how many years.

[djw180 6,980]

I will attempt to watch this later. Any bets on at what point in the film I would stop watching, were it not for Film Club?

[LimeGreenLegend 4,277]

4 minutes ago, djw180 said:

I will attempt to watch this later. Any bets on at what point in the film I would stop watching, were it not for Film Club?

The first song.  

[Con 5,719]

I haven’t had any luck finding this for free so imma have to cough up a few dollars to watch it so that will ensure I watch every second of it. As I hadnt planned on watching after the first Speedo comes off, i think that was what was going on in a trailer i came across. 

Edited January 22, 2021 by Con

[Con 5,719]

I have a feeling this movie is going to be for me, the Trump Presidency of Cinema. 😄 

Edited January 22, 2021 by Con

[LimeGreenLegend 4,277]

8 minutes ago, Con said:

I have a feeling this movie is going to be for me, the Trump Presidency of Cinema. 😄 

How to make two hours feel like four years 😄 

[Con 5,719]

15 minutes ago, LimeGreenLegend said:

How to make two hours feel like four years 😄 

[djw180 6,980]

17 hours ago, Con said:

I haven’t had any luck finding this for free so imma have to cough up a few dollars to watch it so that will ensure I watch every second of it. As I hadnt planned on watching after the first Speedo comes off, i think that was what was going on in a trailer i came across. 

Same for me. This is the most expensive film I've watched for film club, had pay near £8 for DVD!

I'll do my reveiw later, but it wasn't as bad as it could have been.

[Sinister 2,583]

Can rent it for 4 bucks from Amazon. My wife has committed to watching it with me since she is also a fan of terrible movies. We will be torturing ourselves tomorrow.

[djw180 6,980]

Technically not a good film, but it was enjoyable when not taking it seriously in a 'so bad it is good' kind of way.

 

The acting varied from abysmal to OK. If that had just the been the actual members of Village People not acting very well that would have been reasonable, but it was many of those who were supposed to be proper actors as well. It reminded me of a bad 70s/80s sitcom. The plot was quite bad as well, really contrived how they set things up to feature the songs, but to be fair I find this in most musicals and is why I generally don't like them.

The music was good. I can't say I was ever a big fan of Village People and two of their songs I remember did not feature (In the Navy and Go West; I guess they were released after this film). But they were always good to dance to at themed club nights. The dance scenes were very good, choreographed by Arlene Philips, one of the original Strictly Come Dancing judges. They reminded me of old style Hollywood musicals given a 80s make-over. The YMCA scene was particularly good, even though it didn't really add anything to the plot.

It's hard to say at what point, or even if, I would have stopped watching this under normal circumstances. I would never have chosen to watch it in the first place, but if I had been flicking through channels late at night after a few drinks and come across this during one of the songs then I may well have stayed with it.

 

4/10

[Sinister 2,583]

Wow, not sure what I just watched. I wanted to hate it but I just couldn't.

The movie was more strange and disjointed than terrible. Acting was all over the map and some of the music was atrocious, especially that first song about New York. I was ready to turn it off that early but stuck with it. The story itself was a mess that just bounces all over the place and rarely ever made sense. Really surprised that the actual VP songs used were not the well know hits. Macho Man and In the Navy would have been great. 

End of the day the movie had me laughing at how terrible it was and that made it more enjoyable to me.   2 out of 5 stars.

 

Interesting fact, the Village People really started off as 1 (the COP) guy that did all the song writing and performing for the debut album. Once the songs became popular and venues wanted them to perform and TV shows wanted to use them they scrambled to put a group together to do just that. The original guy left the group during production of the movie. He has since won back the rights to all of his songs and the Village People name and performs under the moniker with an entirely different group of people. 

Sad note. A very well know photo from the Sept 11 attacks in New York shows a man falling from one of the buildings after the planes hit. That person is the brother of the group member that played the soldier.

Edited January 25, 2021 by Sinister

[LimeGreenLegend 4,277]

I honestly can't believe that we're covering this for the film club.  Back in college me and some friends would regulalry have a bad movie night.  Despite watching some absolute classics of crap cinema like Arnie's screen debut Hercules in New York and Tommy Wiseau's The Room my favourite, being a fan of musicals, was Can't Stop the Music.  I must have seen this film twenty times, at least.  I've seen this more than The Godfather, Citizen Kane, Vertigo and any number of actually good films.  

This film is like a puzzle where it looks like all the pieces will fit, but then you try to put it together and it's a mess.  You have the producer and writers of Grease, one of the biggest musicals of all time.  You have a big budget.  You have one of the hottest groups in music, despite that fact that disco was already dead by this time.  You have up and coming actors who want to make this their big break and you have a gold medal winning Olympic athlete in his film debut. What happened?  It seems that this film was doomed from the start.  Firstly it was released on the same day as another musical; you may have heard of it: The Blues Brothers.  Secondly, this film was the inspiration for the Golden Raspberry Awards, the anti-Oscars, and won the first ever Razzie for Worst Picture.  Although I don't know how seriously to take these awards as the same year Kubrick was nominated for Worst Director for The Shining.  

Can't Stop the Music is the first and only film directed by Nancy Walker.  It stars, alongside the Village People, Steve Guttenberg as Jack Morell, a stand-in for the Jacques Moralli, the man who put the group together and wrote most of their songs.  Valerie Perrine plays Samantha, former model who becomes the groups manager (I think).  Perrine and Walker didn't get along at all, so most of the scenes which include her were shot by an assistant director.  Bruce-now Caitlyn-Jenner plays Ron, a name I know only from checking the iMDB page, I just call him the tax lawyer.  Allan Carr said he would be “the Robert Redford of the 80s”.  And if he could act he might have been.  

The plot sees Morell quit his job at a record store to write his own music.  The scenes of him composing are hilarious, just “doo-do-doo”ing  tunelessly. He needs a group to perform his music, and through several “hilarious” escapades the Village People are born.  My favourite of these scenes has to be the audition with the fire eater (“I'm James, and flames my games”), the muscle boy (“body, body, wanna touch my body, body”) and the introduction of Glenn Hughes, the leatherman (“I'm just here to file a tax return”), my favourite Village Person.  The impetus is now to get a record deal, which Samantha helps with because of a former relationship with a record company guy (Paul Sand).  They get the contract, with some more help from Morell's mother (June Havoc), and we end with a big sing-along to the title track.  The plot is thinner than Karen Carpenter, and is just an excuse to get from one musical number to the next.  

How you get on with the soundtrack here depends on your mileage with disco music.  I'm not a huge fan, but there are some decent songs in this film.  My personal favourites are Sound of the City, Samantha (the two first songs in the Village People film aren't even Village People songs, surely a bad omen) Magic Nights, Liberation, Milkshake and, of course, Y.M.C.A.  They're all cheesy pop tunes that feel like a hangover from the 70s rather than the “sound of the 80s” that they keep going on about in the film.  The staging of these songs range from cheap and camp to very cheap and camp.  This film, for having such a decent budget, looks incredibly tacky.  Especially the Y.M.C.A sequence, which seems to have been filmed at an actual Y.M.C.A and has none of the glamour of the other musical scenes.  It does have boobs and full frontal male nudity though.  Which makes me confused as to who the target audience of this film is.  A lot of the film is goofy and seems geared toward a younger audience, but then you see some c*ck.  The character of Lulu (Marilyn Sokol) who me and my friends would just refer to as Rocky Horror (she's the spit of Tim Curry to me) seems out of place in the same way.  She's so h*rny, and there's the scene where she gets high off her *ss with Guttenberg.  What film is she supposed to be in?  Then there's Jenner.  Not only is he a terrible actor, his character just doesn't make sense.  He goes from suit wearing tax lawyer in one scene to wearing a belly shirt and denim hot pants in the next.  Is he gay now?  For a musical starring the Village People this film has no overt references to homosexuality.  Not all members of the group were gay, but they were created to represent gay fantasies of the time and were icons and spearheads of the gay rights movements of the 70s and 80s.  To me, that would make for a much better, more interesting film than the watered down crap that we got.  

But although it is crap, it's crap that I love.  From the first scene of Guttenberg rollerskating through the city to the last scene of the climactic concert (I love the sparkly, sequined versions of all their outfits) I had an absolute blast watching this again and I'd recommend this to anyone with a love of campy-cheesy bad films as this is one of the best campy-cheesy bad films out there.  Just remember, leathermen don't get nervous! 9/10

[Sinister 2,583]

I can agree with that razzie award. The Shining sucks 🙂

[LimeGreenLegend 4,277]

2 hours ago, Sinister said:

I can agree with that razzie award. The Shining sucks 🙂

I'm just gonna pretend you didn't say that 😛